DER 


UCSB   LIBRARY 


ON  ACTING 


ON    ACTING 


BY 

BRANDER  MATTHEWS 

PROFESSOR   OF   DRAMATIC   LITERATURE    IN  COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY 

MEMBER   Of   THE   AMERICAN    ACADEMY   OF 

ARTS  AND  LETTERS 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
1914 


COPYRIGHT,  1914,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  September,  1914 


TO   GEORGE   ARLISS 


ON  ACTING 

I 

TT THEN  George  Henry  Lewes  col- 
lected into  an  invaluable  little 
book  his  scattered  essays  'On  Actors 
and  the  Art  of  Acting*  he  prefixt  a 
prefatory  letter  to  Anthony  Trollope, 
wherein  he  dwelt  on  the  ignorance  of 
the  fundamental  basis  of  the  actor's 
art  wide-spread  even  among  men  of 
culture,  who  would  have  held  it  dis- 
graceful to  be  as  ill-informed  about  the 
principles  of  any  of  the  kindred  arts. 
"I  have  heard  those,"  he  wrote,  "for 
whose  opinions  in  other  directions  my 
respect  is  great,  utter  judgments  on 
this  subject  which  proved  that  they 

had  not  even  a  suspicion  of  what  the 

i 


ON  ACTING 

art  of  acting  really  is.  Whether  they 
blamed  or  praised,  the  grounds  which 
they  advanced  for  praise  or  blame  were 
often  questionable." 

In  the  two  score  years  since  Lewes 
made  this  sweeping  assertion  the  actor 
has  attracted  more  and  more  atten- 
tion; the  theater  has  again  established 
its  importance  both  in  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States;  and  the  drama 
has  shown  many  signs  that  it  is  likely 
to  recover  its  lost  ground  among  the 
peoples  that  speak  English.  And  yet 
the  general  ignorance  in  regard  to  the 
art  of  acting  is  not  less  than  it  was 
when  Lewes  was  comparing  Edmund 
Kean  with  Rachel  and  recording  his 
first  impressions  of  Salvini.  A  know- 
ledge of  the  principles  of  the  art  is  no 
more  widely  diffused  now  than  it  was 
when  the  staple  play  of  the  English 
stage  was  a  mangled  and  misleading 
adaptation  from  the  French. 


ON  ACTING 

Of  course,  the  unthinking  spectators 
will  always  fail  to  give  a  thought  to  the 
unseen  dramatist,  and  they  will  always 
confuse  the  actor  with  the  character 
he  is  personating.  They  will  applaud 
the  lovely  heroine,  because  they  sym- 
pathize with  her  sufferings  or  her  sen- 
timents, wholly  regardless  of  the  artis- 
tic accomplishment  of  the  actress  who 
impersonates  her;  and  they  will  hiss 
the  unsightly  villain,  whom  they  de- 
test for  his  evil  intent,  even  tho  the 
actor  taking  the  part  may  be  the  most 
skilful  of  the  performers.  They  would 
discover  nothing  absurd  in  the  remark 
of  a  certain  drummer,  once  made  to 
a  distinguisht  comedian:  "Mr.  Drew,  I 
don't  see  how  you  manage  to  think  of 
so  many  clever  things  to  say  on  the 
stage.  I  wish  I  could  learn  to  do  that 
offhand.  It  would  be  mighty  useful  to 
me  in  my  business." 

And  not  only  unthinking  spectators 
3 


ON  ACTING 

are  capable  of  absurdities  of  this  sort, 
for  a  similar  ignorance  is  sometimes 
revealed  even  by  those  who  are  per- 
mitted to  write  theatrical  notices  in 
the  newspapers.  Whoever  has  occa- 
sion to  read  many  of  these  reports  must 
have  seen  more  than  one  passage  in 
which  the  reviewer  credited  the  actor 
with  the  ingenuity  which  the  play- 
wright had  bestowed  on  the  character. 
For  example,  the  account  of  the  first 
performance  of  a  British  farce  which 
appeared  in  one  of  the  New  York  pa- 
pers a  few  years  ago  stated  that  "  Miss 
Blank  was  excellent;  in  fact,  she  did 
quite  the  cleverest  thing  in  the  play 
when  she  was  quick-witted  enough  to 
arrange  the  furniture  so  as  to  deceive 
the  officers  of  the  law."  Blunders  as 
flagrant  as  this  are  not  common,  of 
course;  but  that  they  occur  at  all  is 
evidence  of  a  disheartening  misunder- 
standing of  the  art  of  the  stage. 
4 


ON  ACTING 

That  gross  misconceptions  of  this 
sort  should  actually  get  into  print  is 
evidence  also  of  a  general  belief  that 
dramatic  reviewing  is  very  easy,  and 
that  anybody  may  be  trusted  to  write 
a  theatrical  notice,  however  little  he 
knows  about  the  theater.  It  may  be 
admitted  possibly  that  a  descriptive 
paragraph  or  two  can  be  considered 
quite  sufficient  for  the  most  of  the  en- 
tertainments offered  in  our  play-houses, 
—  entertainments  often  satisfactory, 
each  in  its  own  fashion,  and  yet  not 
demanding  serious  consideration.  But 
circumstances  change  when  an  impor- 
tant new  play  is  produced.  Then  the 
task  of  the  dramatic  reviewer  may  be 
both  difficult  and  delicate,  since  he  has 
to  form  an  opinion  as  to  the  merits  of 
the  play  itself,  which  he  can  know  only 
thru  this  single  performance,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  judge  the  actors  also 
as  they  appear  in  this  half-known  piece. 
5 


ON  ACTING 

In  other  words,  he  can  see  the  play  only 
thru  the  players,  as  he  can  see  the  per- 
formers only  thru  the  piece;  and  either 
medium  may  refract  so  that  he  shall 
get  a  false  image. 

Sometimes  a  play  of  less  than  aver- 
age merit  may  be  saved  by  superior 
acting,  or  even  by  the  surpassing  per- 
sonal appeal  of  the  chief  actor  or  ac- 
tress. The  special  vocabulary  of  the 
theater  recognizes  this;  and  it  de- 
scribes certain  characters  as  "parts  that 
play  themselves,"  and  certain  plays  as 
"actor-proof,"  meaning  thereby  that 
these  parts  and  these  plays  are  likely 
to  please  the  public  even  if  they  are 
inadequately  performed.  The  stage- 
folk  also  know  certain  characters  as 
"ungrateful  parts,"  recognizing  that 
even  the  best  acting  cannot  make  them 
satisfactory  to  the  performer  or  to  the 
spectator.  And  the  French  go  fur- 
ther: they  speak  of  a  "false  good  part," 
6 


ON  ACTING 

a  faux  bon  role,  meaning  thereby  a  part 
which  appears  to  be  prominent  and 
important  but  which  is  not  as  rich  as 
it  seems,  altho  its  real  poverty  is  often 
not  revealed  even  to  the  actor  himself 
until  the  actual  performance.  These 
are  subtleties  of  the  histrionic  art  which 
are  never  suspected  by  the  ordinary 
playgoer,  who  comes  to  the  theater  in 
search  of  unthinking  recreation.  But 
they  need  to  be  mastered  by  every 
critic  of  the  acted  drama. 


II 

"PROBABLY  the  ordinary  playgoer 
-••  would  be  swift  to  accept  the  first  of 
two  definitions  once  proposed  by  Bron- 
son  Howard:  "The  art  of  acting  is  the 
art  of  moving,  speaking,  and  appearing 
on  the  stage  as  the  character  assumed 
would  move,  speak,  and  appear  in  real 
life,  under  the  circumstances  indicated 
in  the  play/'  As  he  suggested,  this 
appears  to  be  a  reasonable  definition; 
but,  as  he  went  on  to  explain,  it  is  "ab- 
solutely and  radically  false,"  because  it 
leaves  out  the  one  essential  word.  It 
ought  to  read:  "The  art  of  acting  is 
the  art  of  seeming  to  move,  speak,  and 
appear  on  the  stage  as  the  character 
assumed  moves,  speaks,  and  appears 

in   real  life,  under  the  circumstances 

8 


ON  ACTING 

indicated  in  the  play."  And  the  expe- 
rienced dramatist  commented  on  this 
second  definition  and  explained  that 
"the  actor's  art  is  to  make  the  people 
in  an  audience,  some  of  them  a  hun- 
dred feet  or  more  away,  think  that  he 
is  moving,  speaking,  and  appearing  like 
the  character  assumed;  and,  in  nine 
cases  out  of  ten,  the  only  way  to  make 
them  think  so  is  not  to  be  doing  it;  to 
be  doing  something  else." 

And  in  his  helpful  discussion  of  his 
own  calling,  'L'Art  et  le  Comedien/ 
Coquelin  insisted  on  the  same  point. 
You  may  do  what  you  please  in  your 
effort  to  attain  the  utmost  of  realism  in 
scenery  and  in  furniture,  the  stage  will 
ever  remain  the  stage,  and  it  cannot  be 
the  real  thing.  "You  are  in  the  thea- 
ter," the  great  French  actor  declared, 
"and  not  in  the  street  or  at  home. 
If  you  put  on  the  stage  the  action  of 
the  street  or  the  home,  there  will  re- 
9 


ON  ACTING 

suit  very  much  what  would  happen  if 
you  were  to  put  a  life-sized  statue  on 
top  of  a  column:  it  would  no  longer 
seem  to  be  life-sized." 

When  the  sculptor  is  modeling  a 
statue  for  the  top  of  a  column  or  for 
the  pediment  of  a  monumental  edifice, 
to  be  seen  only  from  below,  he  pro- 
portions it  to  this  lofty  height,  very 
differently  from  the  way  in  which  he 
would  deal  with  the  same  figure  if  it 
had  to  stand  by  itself  on  a  low  pedestal 
in  an  open  park.  So  the  actor  has  to 
adjust  his  representation  of  reality  to 
the  large  theater,  so  much  larger  than 
the  room  in  which  the  character  is  sup- 
posed to  stand.  He  has  to  change  his 
scale,  to  translate  the  actual  reality  into 
the  semblance  of  reality.  He  can  seem 
real  only  by  not  sticking  absolutely  to 
the  facts.  Lewes  quoted  from  the 
diary  of  the  French  comedian  Mole  a 

note  to  the  effect  that  this  actor,  one 
10 


ON  ACTING 

evening,  was  not  satisfied  with  his 
work,  since  he  had  let  himself  go  and 
had  been  "too  much  the  character  it- 
self" and  no  longer  the  actor  playing 
it:  "I  was  real  as  I  would  have  been  at 
home;  I  ought  to  have  been  real  in 
another  way,  in  accord  with  the  per- 
spective of  the  theater."  This  sug- 
gests an  explanation  of  the  fact  that  a 
lady  who  has  stept  from  society  to 
the  stage  may  appear  almost  unlady- 
like as  an  actress,  altho  in  her  own 
home  she  might  be  an  accomplisht 
woman  of  the  world.  She  cannot  seem 
what  she  really  is  because  she  does  not 
understand  the  perspective  of  the  the- 
ater. 


ii 


Ill 

TO  get  a  firm  grasp  of  the  principles 
of  the  art  of  acting  is  at  least  as 
difficult  as  it  is  to  seize  those  of  the  art 
of  painting;  and  the  inquirer  can  find 
most  profit  in  conference  with  the  ac- 
tual practitioners  of  the  art.  Much  of 
the  chatter  about  painters  and  paint- 
ing is  futile  and  foolish;  and  so  is  most 
of  the  chatter  about  actors  and  acting. 
But  we  can  listen  with  as  much  plea- 
sure as  profit  when  the  artists  them- 
selves are  willing  to  talk  about  their 
art,  to  discuss  their  own  way  of  work- 
ing, and  to  reveal  the  secrets  of  the 
craft.  As  John  La  Farge  once  de- 
clared, what  the  artist  "has  to  say 
about  himself  and  his  art  is  of  the  ut- 
most use,  and,  in  fact,  is  the  only  au- 
12 


ON  ACTING 

thority.  All  people  interested,  that  is 
to  say,  all  real  students,  .  .  .  must 
make  the  effort  to  learn  in  any  direc- 
tion, whatever  it  may  be,  —  thru  the 
wording  of  the  teachers,"  —  who  are 
also  practitioners  of  the  art. 

So  we  learn  best  about  painting  from 
La  Farge  himself,  and  from  Fromentin, 
and  from  a  few  other  painters  who  hap- 
pen also  to  have  the  critical  faculty  and 
the  gift  of  exposition.  And  in  like 
manner  we  can  find  our  profit  in  what 
the  actors  have  to  say  about  their  own 
art,  —  not  in  formal  disquisition,  but 
in  suggestive  discussion  of  their  fellow- 
craftsmen.  It  is  true  that  one  actor, 
—  Samson,  —  who  was  Rachel's  trainer, 
a  most  finisht  comedian,  prepared  a 
set  treatise  on  the  histrionic  art;  but 
his  didactic  poem,  on  the  model  of 
Horace's  'Art  of  Poetry/  has  never 
been  rendered  into  English.  But  we 
have  the  incomparable  'Apology  for 
13 


ON  ACTING 

the  Life  of  Colley  Gibber/  and  the  il- 
luminating 'Autobiography'  of  Joseph 
Jefferson,  and  the  stimulating  lecture 
on  the  art  of  the  actor  by  Coquelin, 
the  most  accomplisht  of  comedians  in 
the  final  years  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. And  then  there  is  the  little  col- 
lection of  essays  by  George  Henry 
Lewes,  an  actor  himself,  a  playwright 
also,  and  the  son  of  an  actor,  with  an 
inherited  insight  into  the  practise  of 
the  profession. 

These  are  more  useful  than  the  works 
of  the  profest  critics  of  the  theater, 
altho  there  is  much  to  be  gleaned  here 
and  there  in  the  writings  of  Lamb  and 
Hazlitt,  in  the  two  solid  tomes  devoted 
to  the  chief  figures  of  the  contemporary 
French  stage  by  the  late  Francisque 
Sarcey,  and  in  the  ingenious  inquiry 
of  Mr.  William  Archer,  which  he  called 
'Masks  or  Faces/  and  in  which  he  col- 
lected the  evidence  for  and  against 


ON  ACTING 

Diderot's  '  Paradox'  —  that  the  actor 
must  not  feel  too  acutely  the  emotion 
he  is  depicting.  Not  to  be  overlook* 
are  the  pregnant  words  of  the  play- 
wrights also:  Shakspere's  advice  to  the 
Players  in  'Hamlet,'  Moliere's  counsel 
to  his  own  comrades  in  the  '  Impromptu 
of  Versailles,'  and  Legouve's  excellent 
papers  on  Rachel  and  Ristori.  The 
relation  of  the  dramaturgic  art  to  the 
histrionic  must  ever  be  very  close;  and 
the  dramatist  has  perforce  to  acquire 
a  certain  knowledge  of  the  actors' 
technic,  or  else  he  will  not  be  able  prop- 
erly to  prepare  what  he  is  devising  for 
their  use. 


IV 


dramatic  poet  always  intends 
-•-  his  works  for  the  stage  itself;  he 
plans  them  to  be  performed  before  an 
audience,  in  a  theater,  and  by  actors. 
Therefore  he  is  ever  taking  account  of 
the  spectators,  and  of  their  prejudices 
and  of  their  predilections;  he  is  always 
careful  to  adjust  his  work  to  the  actual 
conditions  of  the  theater  of  his  own 
time;  and  he  utilizes  to  the  utmost 
the  special  qualifications  of  the  actors 
who  take  part  in  the  performance.  A 
great  poet  cannot  write  a  play  without 
considering  the  actor's  art,  any  more 
than  he  can  write  a  lyric  to  be  set  to 
music  without  considering  the  vocal- 
ist's art.  Shelley  is  a  far  finer  lyrist 

than  Moore,  but  the  Irish  bard  sang 
16 


ON  ACTING 

his  songs  into  being,  and  their  open 
vowels  are  ever  a  delight  to  the  singer; 
whereas  the  English  poet,  giving  little 
thought  to  the  musician,  filled  his 
lyrics  with  consonants  which  close  the 
mouth.  "The  stage  is  to  the  prose- 
drama,"  so  Mr.  Henry  James  once 
remarkt,  "what  the  time  is  to  the 
song,  or  the  concrete  case  to  the  gen- 
eral law." 

It  is  at  his  peril  that  the  playwright 
does  not  take  the  player  into  account. 
No  one  of  the  great  dramatists,  it  is 
well  to  remember,  has  ever  failed  to 
maintain  cordial  relations  with  the 
several  performers  of  his  plays.  Bet- 
ter than  any  one  else,  the  great  drama- 
tist knew  how  much  he  might  be  in- 
debted to  the  actors,  to  their  skill,  to 
their  sympathy,  and  to  their  loyalty. 
Sometimes,  it  is  true,  we  find  an  au- 
thor who  has  sought  success  on  the 
stage  without  attaining  the  aim  of  his 
17 


ON  ACTING 

ambition,  allowing  himself  to  express 
an  unfavorable  opinion  of  actors  as  a 
class.  Daudet,  for  one,  was  sharp  in 
his  detection  and  delineation  of  their 
defects.  But  the  real  playwrights  are 
glad  ever  to  show  their  hearty  appre- 
ciation of  the  cooperation  they  have 
received  from  the  actor  who  helped 
to  reveal  the  vitality  of  their  works. 
Some  of  them  are  willing  to  go  as  far 
as  Voltaire  went  after  Mile.  Clairon 
had  impersonated  his  'Electra,'  when 
he  declared,  "It  is  not  I  who  did  that; 
—  she  did  it !  She  has  really  created 
the  character!" 

Nor  is  this  an  exaggeration,  a  mere 
empty  compliment.  That  playwright 
is  without  wide  experience  who  has  not 
had  the  unexpected  pleasure  of  behold- 
ing one  of  his  characters  transformed 
by  an  actor,  who  charged  it  with  a 
meaning  and  a  purpose,  a  variety  and 

a  veracity,  that  the  author  himself  did 
18 


ON  ACTING 

not  suspect  and  that  he  had  not  con- 
sciously intended.  This  transforma- 
tion may  have  been  caused  by  the 
artistic  insight  of  the  performer,  or  it 
may  have  been  due  simply  to  his  per- 
sonality. Sometimes  a  part  is  thus 
transfigured  merely  by  the  physical 
fitness  of  the  actor  for  the  character. 
For  it  is  not  only  the  personality  of  the 
actor  which  affects  his  art :  it  is  also  his 
actual  person.  The  tools  of  his  trade 
are  the  members  of  his  own  body.  His 
hands  and  his  arms,  his  walk  and  his 
gesture,  the  glance  of  his  eye  and  the 
tones  of  his  voice,  —  these  are  the  im- 
plements of  his  art,  these  are  his  chisel 
and  his  marble,  his  brushes,  his  palet, 
and  his  canvas. 


HE  acts  with  his  own  person,  and 
that  must  ever  be  the  material  of 
his  art.  He  is  fortunate,  indeed,  if  he 
happens  to  be  young  and  handsome, 
strong  of  limb  and  manly  in  bearing, 
with  expressive  eyes  and  a  moving 
voice.  These  natural  gifts  will  carry 
him  along,  if  only  he  can  acquire  even 
a  slight  acquaintance  with  the  elements 
of  his  art.  Many  a  pretty  woman  has 
gone  on  the  stage  and  won  immediate 
popularity  by  her  personal  charm  alone, 
by  the  compelling  power  of  her  youth, 
her  grace,  and  her  beauty.  This  is 
what  Fanny  Kemble  did;  and  yet  she 
admitted  at  once  the  justice  of  Ma- 
cready's  assertion  that  she  did  not 

know  the  rudiments  of  her  profession. 
20 


ON  ACTING 

Descended  from  a  race  of  artists,  the 
daughter  of  Charles  Kemble  recognized 
that  she  herself  was  only  an  amateur. 
Another  lady  who  had  met  with  a 
similar  success  for  similar  reasons,  but 
who  married  and  gave  up  the  theater 
after  two  or  three  years  of  acting,  once 
confest  to  me,  later  in  life,  that  it  was 
only  toward  the  end  of  her  brief  career 
on  the  stage  that  she  had  begun  to  find 
out  how  she  made  her  effects,  learning 
doubtfully  how  to  control  them  and 
how  to  repeat  them  night  after  night. 
That  is  to  say,  the  actress  was  just 
learning  the  rudiments  of  her  profes- 
sion, altho  the  woman  had  long  won 
by  her  personal  attraction  a  prosper- 
ous popularity  in  the  theater. 

This  it  is  that  chiefly  distinguishes 
the   actors   from   all   other  artists,  - 
that  they  must  do  their  work  with  their 
own  persons  and  in  public.     The  poet 
may  retire  to  an  ivory  tower  far  away, 

21 


ON  ACTING 

and  the  painter  may  prefer  a  remote 
solitude;  they  separate  what  they  do 
from  themselves,  and  they  send  this 
away.  They  are  not  present  when  we 
read  the  poem  or  see  the  picture.  They 
do  not  come  into  direct  contact  with 
us,  and  they  may  ignore  us,  if  they 
see  fit.  But  the  actor  must  work  in 
the  presence  of  the  public,  and  the 
material  of  his  art  is  himself.  And 
this  again  accounts  for  the  acuter  sen- 
sitiveness of  the  actor  to  criticism.  It 
is  easy  enough  to  discuss  what  the 
poet  has  done,  or  the  painter,  without 
personal  comment.  But  how  is  it  pos- 
sible to  separate  the  art  of  the  actor 
from  his  personality?  How  can  the 
artist  and  the  man  be  disentangled? 
How  may  an  adverse  criticism  on  the 
performance  of  a  part  avoid  the  ap- 
pearance of  an  adverse  criticism  on 
the  personal  characteristics  of  the  hu- 
man being  who  has  put  himself  inside 
22 


ON  ACTING 

the  character?  Perhaps  it  might  be 
achieved  by  a  critic  of  extraordinary 
skill  and  delicacy;  but  it  is  too  much 
to  expect  from  the  average  theatrical 
reviewer. 

It  was  a  wise  appreciation  of  this 
fact  which  led  Edwin  Booth  to  recom- 
mend the  permanent  debarring  of  the 
profest  theatrical  reviewer  from  mem- 
bership in  The  Players,  the  club  which 
he  founded  for  his  own  profession  and 
for  the  practitioners  of  the  allied  arts 
of  literature,  painting,  sculpture,  archi- 
tecture, and  music.  Even  the  jour- 
nalist, as  such,  is  not  excluded,  so  long 
as  he  will  refrain  from  the  discussion  of 
contemporary  actors.  The  literary 
critic  is  admitted,  since  any  author 
must  be  strangely  thin-skinned  who 
cannot  sit  at  meat  with  the  writer  of 
an  adverse  review;  and  the  critic  of 
painting  is  made  welcome,  since  the 
painter  and  his  work  are  easily  sep- 
23 


ON  ACTING 

arable.  But  the  histrionic  critic  must 
remain  outside  the  doors  of  The  Play- 
ers since  he  cannot,  whatever  his  good 
will,  deal  with  the  actor  without  laps- 
ing into  personal  comment  on  the  man. 
This  rule  of  The  Players  is  an  unwrit- 
ten law  only,  but  it  is  always  obeyed; 
and  more  than  one  member  attracted 
to  theatrical  reviewing  has  had  reluc- 
tantly to  renounce  the  privilege  of 
being  a  Player.  This  wise  rule  has 
only  one  disadvantage:  by  keeping  the 
actor  and  the  critic  apart  it  lessens  the 
opportunity  of  the  latter  to  learn  more 
about  the  art  of  the  former. 


24 


VI 

TO  win  a  fair  proportion  of  popular 
approval  an  actor  needs  only  an 
attractive  personality  and  also  a  modi- 
cum of  the  mimetic  faculty,  —  of  the 
special  aptitude  for  the  stage,  which  is 
as  distinct  a  gift  as  the  aptitude  for 
story-telling,  or  for  making  verses,  or 
for  acquiring  money.  The  successful 
actor  may  happen  also  to  be  a  man  of 
wide  intelligence,  as  Garrick  was,  and 
Coquelin  also;  but  he  is  no  more  likely 
to  have  an  acute  intellect  than  is  a 
successful  novelist  or  a  successful  busi- 
ness man.  The  men  who  make  money 
and  the  men  who  write  popular  novels 
may  or  may  not  be  possest  of  remark- 
able mental  ability;  they  have  suc- 
ceeded rather  by  virtue  of  their  special 


ON  ACTING 

aptitude  for  story-telling  or  for  money- 
making.  The  special  aptitude  of  the 
actor  may  be  accompanied  by  ability 
in  other  directions;  but  the  possession 
of  the  special  aptitude  is  not  evidence 
that  he  has  also  the  wider  intelligence. 
Just  as  Paul  Morphy  was  the  fore- 
most of  chess-players,  but  in  other  re- 
spects only  a  man  of  ordinary  capac- 
ity, so  an  actor  of  high  rank  may  be  no 
more  brilliant  than  the  average  man. 
Mrs.  Siddons  was  the  greatest  of  Lady 
Macbeths,  with  an  incomparable  skill 
in  sounding  the  unseen  depths  of  that 
tragic  figure;  but  the  essay  she  wrote 
on  the  subject  is  almost  valueless* 
Salvini  was  the  greatest  of  Othellos, 
with  a  lofty  largeness  of  imaginative 
interpretation;  but  his  critical  papers 
on  the  part  do  not  display  any  special 
insight.  Mrs.  Siddons  and  Salvini  were 
dowered  with  the  special  aptitude  of 

acting,   and  they  cultivated   this  gift 
26 


ON  ACTING 

loyally  and  diligently;  but  outside  of 
their  acting  they  were  only  ordinary 
mortals. 

Probably  this  is  what  Lewes  had  in 
mind  when  he  asserted  that  "people 
generally  overrate  a  fine  actor's  genius, 
and  underrate  his  trained  skill.  They 
are  apt  to  credit  him  with  a  power  of 
intellectual  conception  and  poetic  crea- 
tion to  which  he  has  really  a  very  slight 
claim,  and  fail  to  recognize  all  the 
difficulties  which  his  artistic  training 
has  enabled  him  to  master."  What 
the  actor  must  have,  if  he  is  to  rise  high 
in  his  art,  is  not  general  intelligence 
but  the  special  intelligence  of  his  own 
art,  the  intuitive  understanding  of  its 
possibilities  and  of  its  limitations,  the 
clear  insight  into  its  principles  and  the 
power  swiftly  to  apply  them.  That 
he  should  always  be  conscious  of  the 
full  effect  of  what  he  does,  that  he 

should  always  know  just  why  he  does 
27 


ON  ACTING 

it,  —  this  is  not  at  all  necessary,  for 
often  the  best  work  of  the  artist  is 
instinctive.  He  does  what  he  does 
because  that  is  indeed  the  only  way 
for  him  to  do  it.  There  is  no  need 
that  he  should  be  conscious  of  his 
processes,  or  that  he  should  be  able 
to  trace  the  steps  that  led  him  to 
the  satisfactory  result.  Poe  is  not  a 
greater  poet  because  he  has  analized 
the  succession  of  motives  which  had  led 
him  to  the  composition  of  the  'Raven/ 
Like  all  other  artists,  the  actor  is 
greatest  in  his  achievement  when  he 
has  builded  better  than  he  knew.  His 
native  aptitude  and  his  artistic  train- 
ing enable  him  to  produce  an  impres- 
sion which  often  seems  to  be  the  result 
of  pure  intellectual  power.  Planche 
has  an  anecdote  in  point:  The  day 
after  the  first  performance  of  a  play 
of  his  in  which  a  certain  comedian  had 

given    an    intelligent    and    impressive 
28 


ON  ACTING 

performance  of  a  leading  character, 
this  actor  applied  to  the  author  for 
the  loan  of  the  manuscript,  explaining 
that  he  had  been  absent  when  the  play 
had  been  read  to  the  company  and  he 
did  not  really  "know  what  it  was  all 
about."  And  yet,  his  innate  gift  and 
his  skill  in  his  own  calling  had  per- 
mitted him  to  profit  by  the  hints  of 
the  stage-manager  at  rehearsal,  and  so 
to  deliver  the  words  of  his  part  as  to 
suggest  a  keen  intellectual  apprecia- 
tion of  the  action,  even  if  he  did  not 
"know  what  it  was  all  about."  He 
had  not  had  wit  enough  to  find  out 
the  story  of  the  play  before  he  acted 
in  it;  and  yet  when  he  acted  it  he 
seemed  to  display  ample  intelligence. 


29 


VII 

TN  one  of  M.  Jean  Richepin's  stories 
•*•  of  stage-life,  there  is  a  veracious 
portrait  of  a  broken-down  actor  so 
enamored  of  his  art  that  he  must  ever 
be  teaching  it,  wherefore  he  has  gath- 
ered about  him  a  group  of  ambitious 
urchins  whom  he  instructs  in  acting  and 
to  whom  he  imparts  the  principles  of 
the  craft.  He  has  the  actor's  frequent 
contempt  for  the  mere  author  of  the 
play,  and  he  impresses  on  his  young 
pupils  that  they  are  always  to  go  be- 
hind the  words  of  their  parts  to  the 
emotions  evoked  by  the  situation  it- 
self, since  it  is  the  duty  of  the  actor  to 
express  these  emotions  richly  and  com- 
pletely, no  matter  how  poorly  and 
meagerly  the  author  may  have  voiced 
30 


ON  ACTING 

them.  Even  if  the  words  happen  to 
be  inadequate  or  halting,  the  actor 
must  take  care  to  convey  the  senti- 
ment fully  to  the  audience.  And  then, 
to  emphasize  the  unimportance  of  the 
mere  word,  the  old  instructor  picked 
out  a  common  phrase  —  indeed,  one 
of  the  vulgarest  of  all  —  and  bade  his 
little  pupils  repeat  that  single  phrase 
with  the  feeling  proper  to  each  of  a 
series  of  situations,  —  making  love  to 
a  lady,  defying  a  rival,  blessing  a  child, 
and  saying  farewell  to  a  dying  mother. 
He  made  them  employ  always  this 
same  vulgar  phrase,  surcharging  it  with 
the  full  emotion  belonging  to  each  of 
these  several  actions. 

Altho  there  is  more  than  a  hint  of 
caricature  in  M.  Richepin's  sketch, 
the  method  of  his  old  comedian  is 
praiseworthy;  it  is  by  such  emotional 
gymnastic  as  this  that  the  performer 
acquires  flexibility.  The  actor  needs 


ON  ACTING 

to  have  under  control  not  only  his 
gestures  and  his  tones,  but  all  other 
means  of  simulating  sensibility;  and 
these  should  be  ready  for  use  at  all 
times,  wholly  independent  of  the  words 
of  the  text.  He  must  be  able  so  to 
breathe,  "Mesopotamia,"  that  it  shall 
seem  to  be  a  blessed  word,  indeed. 
He  must  be  ready  to  rival  the  feat 
credited  to  Madame  Modjeska  at  a 
reception  in  New  York,  when  she  was 
askt  to  recite  in  Polish.  For  a  while 
she  demurred,  but  at  last  she  yielded 
to  the  urging  of  her  friends.  Standing 
at  one  end  of  the  room,  she  began  to 
repeat  a  strangely  rhythmic  composi- 
tion, unintelligible  of  course  to  her 
hearers,  altho  they  could  catch  the  oc- 
currence of  the  same  sounds  at  inter- 
vals. At  first  it  seemed  simple  enough, 
apparently  with  some  give  and  take 
of  question  and  answer;  and  then 

it  became  pathetic,  and  as  she  spoke 
32 


ON  ACTING 

the  saddening  words  the  voice  of  the 
accomplisht  actress  broke.  There  was 
almost  a  sob  in  her  tones,  and  there 
were  tears  ready  to  fall  from  her  eyes. 
But  her  husband,  Count  Bozenta,  the 
one  person  in  the  company  who  under- 
stood Polish,  had  to  leave  the  room  to 
restrain  his  laughter,  because  what  she 
was  delivering  thus  emotionally  was 
only  the  multiplication-table ! 

Here  the  actress  was  feigning  a  suc- 
cession of  moods  and  a  variety  of 
emotions  without  any  support  of  help- 
ful suggestion  from  the  empty  words 
which  fell  from  her  lips.  Her  feat  was 
akin  to  the  primitive  communication 
of  feeling  without  the  aid  of  language. 
The  syllables  she  uttered  were  meaning- 
less or  contradictory,  but  they  served 
as  the  medium  to  carry  the  emotion 
she  desired  to  convey.  The  Italian 
tragedian  Ernesto  Rossi  used  to  assert 
that  "a  great  actor  is  independent  of 
33 


ON  ACTING 

the  poet,  because  the  supreme  essence 
of  feeling  does  not  reside  in  prose  or  in 
verse,  but  in  the  accent  with  which  it 
is  delivered." 

This  is  not  a  specimen  of  profes- 
sional vainglory,  altho  it  may  have 
that  appearance.  It  is  only  the  over- 
statement of  a  fact.  It  is  supported 
by  the  anecdote  of  Madame  Mod- 
jeska;  and  Rossi  himself  used  to  ad- 
duce as  evidence  in  its  behalf  a  little 
story  even  more  striking.  He  was 
having  supper  one  evening  at  Padua 
with  half-a-dozen  fellow-actors,  and 
they  fell  into  discussion  of  their  own 
art  and  of  its  possibilities.  One  of 
them  pickt  up  the  bill  of  fare  and  de- 
clared his  intention  of  reading  this  bar- 
ren list  so  pathetically  as  to  bring  tears 
to  their  eyes.  The  other  actors  re- 
fused to  believe  that  this  was  possible; 
they  were  not  credulous  spectators; 
they  were  hardened  to  every  trick  of 
34 


ON  ACTING 

the  trade.;  and  they  smiled  at  his  pro- 
posal. The  first  words  he  read  sim- 
ply, rising  soon  to  a  large  dignity  of 
utterance  that  veiled  the  commonplace 
syllables.  Then  his  rich,  full  voice  be- 
gan to  tremble  as  if  with  fear,  and 
to  quiver  at  length  as  tho  the  soul  of 
the  speaker  was  pierced  with  poignant 
agony.  Despite  the  repugnant  words, 
which  ceased  to  be  perceived  clearly, 
the  sweeping  emotions  with  which  his 
tones  were  charged  proved  to  be  ir- 
resistibly contagious;  and  long  before 
he  had  read  to  the  end  of  the  bill  of 
fare,  his  comrades  found  themselves 
looking  at  each  other  with  tears  roll- 
ing down  their  cheeks. 

The  feat  of  the  Italian  actor  is  even 
stranger  and  less  credible  than  that  of 
the  Polish  actress.  She  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  an  unknown  tongue,  and 
she  had  to  move  only  sympathetic  and 
responsive  hearers,  whereas  he  was 
35 


ON  ACTING 

able  to  conquer  expert  witnesses  who 
understood  the  meaning  of  every  syl- 
lable of  the  incongruous  text  he  was 
reading.  Moreover,  the  friends  of  Ma- 
dame Modjeska  were  taken  unawares, 
whereas  Rossi  and  the  other  actors  had 
hardened  their  hearts  to  resist,  and 
must  have  been  taken  captive  in  spite 
of  their  resistance. 


36 


VIII 

French  author  of  the  pleas- 
ant  book  about  the  contemporary 
Italian  stage  from  which  this  little  story 
has  been  borrowed,  failed  to  record  the 
name  of  the  actor  who  was  the  hero  of 
Rossi's  anecdote,  and  who,  very  likely, 
was  not  a  performer  of  high  rank. 
Even  if  he  had  at  his  command  the 
perfect  control  of  a  beautiful  voice,  he 
may  have  been  devoid  of  other  neces- 
sary implements  of  his  art.  Above  all, 
he  may  have  lacked  that  "intelligence 
of  his  profession"  which  alone  would 
enable  him  to  employ  these  implements 
to  best  advantage.  The  mere  posses- 
sion of  all  the  tools  of  his  trade  does 
not  of  itself  make  the  craftsman.  The 
means  of  expression,  however  ample  and 
37 


ON  ACTING 

however  varied,  are  useless  unless  there 
is  something  to  express,  —  and  some- 
thing which  it  is  worth  while  to  ex- 
press. 

Many  an  actor  strong  in  execution 
is  weak  in  conception.  He  does  not 
know  what  it  is  best  for  him  to  do,  tho 
he  knows  how  to  do  it  when  this  is 
shown  to  him.  He  needs  guidance  and 
he  cannot  steer  himself,  altho  he  is 
certain  to  make  a  swift  trip  if  only 
his  course  is  directed  by  a  wiser  head. 
Here  is  the  duty  and  the  opportunity 
of  the  dramatist  himself,  or  of  the  pro- 
ducer of  the  play,  who  need  not  be 
much  of  an  actor,  but  who  must  know 
how  the  play  ought  to  be  acted  in  every 
part,  and  who  can  suggest  to  the  sev- 
eral performers  the  various  effects  they 
are  to  accomplish.  It  may  sound  like 
a  paradox  to  assert  that  the  author  of 
a  play,  who  often  cannot  act  at  all, 
can  yet  teach  the  actors  who  are  his 
38 


ON  ACTING 

masters  in  this  art;  but  this  is  exact- 
ly what  he  may  have  to  do.  Sardou 
has  told  us  that  he  schooled  Anai's 
Fargueil  in  many  of  the  effects  he  had 
studied  in  Ristori's  acting. 

Sometimes,  it  is  true,  the  playwright 
may  be  also  an  accomplisht  actor,  and 
the  result  of  this  combination  is  gen- 
erally very  advantageous.  A  play  of 
Mr.  Gillette's  or  of  the  late  James  A. 
Herne's,  in  which  the  author  himself 
acted,  appeared  always  to  be  per- 
formed by  comedians  of  unusual  intel- 
ligence. Sometimes  the  manager  of 
the  theater,  or  the  stage-manager  who 
brings  out  plays,  has  this  power  of  sug- 
gesting and  controlling  and  guiding. 
Sometimes  even  performers  of  the  high- 
est distinction  have  been  indebted  to 
a  teacher  who  lighted  the  path  that 
else  they  would  have  trodden  in  dark- 
ness. This  dependence  of  the  per- 
former on  the  trainer  has  been  excel- 
39 


ON  ACTING 

lently  seized  by  Thackeray  in  'Pen- 
dennis,'  wherein  we  are  shown  how 
Little  Bowes  the  fiddler  had  taught 
the  lovely  Miss  Fotheringay,  —  how 
he  was  the  organist  and  how  she  was 
the  instrument  whose  music  has  been 
evoked  by  him,  hidden  and  unsus- 
pected. 

Finer  actresses  by  far  than  the 
adored  Miss  Fotheringay  have  owed 
much  to  a  trainer  in  the  background. 
Even  the  great  Mrs.  Siddons  was  in- 
debted for  many  of  her  effects  to  the 
inventive  brain  of  her  brother,  John 
Philip  Kemble.  The  great  Rachel, 
again,  was  the  pupil  of  Samson,  a  lit- 
tle comic  actor,  who  yet  was  able  to 
teach  her  how  to  attain  to  the  loftiest 
heights  of  tragedy.  She  used  to  say 
that  she  was  "lame  on  one  side"  until 
Samson  had  shown  her  what  to  do  with 
a  part.  Legouve  has  recorded  how  she 

turned  to  Samson  during  one  of  the 
40 


ON  ACTING 

rehearsals  of  'Adrienne  Lecouvreur* 
and,  in  the  presence  of  her  assembled 
comrades,  exprest  her  gratitude  to  him, 
who  had  shown  her  how  to  get  the 
best  out  of  herself. 

Every  one  at  all  familiar  with  the 
inner  history  of  the  stage  in  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  during 
the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury is  aware  that  two  of  the  actresses 
who  have  held  a  foremost  position  in 
the  theater  of  both  countries  were  im- 
mensely indebted  to  the  constant  coun- 
sel of  two  of  their  professional  asso- 
ciates. They  had  each  of  them,  not 
exactly  a  Little  Bowes  in  the  back- 
ground, but  a  Samson,  who  guided 
them  and  who  trained  them  to  get  the 
utmost  out  of  their  histrionic  gift. 
To  the  unthinking  spectators  in  the 
theaters  of  London  and  New  York  the 
performances  of  these  charming  ac- 
tresses appeared  to  be  singularly  spon- 


ON  ACTING 

taneous  and  freely  individual.  Yet 
this  free  spontaneity  was  the  result  of 
their  being  able  to  take  a  hint,  to  as- 
similate the  suggestion  they  received, 
and  to  profit  by  it,  each  in  her  own 
fashion  and  in  accord  with  her  own 
temperament.  Each  of  them  was  an 
emotional  instrument,  played  on  by  a 
far  keener  artistic  intelligence  than  her 
own. 


IX 

WHEN  the  keen  artistic  intelli- 
gence and  the  rich  emotional 
instrument  happen  to  be  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  same  person,  then  the  world 
is  likely  to  have  another  great  actor. 
The  intelligence  alone  will  not  suffice, 
or  else  Shakspere  would  have  been  the 
foremost  actor  of  his  day,  and  not  Bur- 
bage.  The  emotion  alone  will  not  do 
it,  unless  it  can  express  itself  adequately 
by  voice  and  look  and  gesture,  —  "the 
actor's  symbols,"  as  Lewes  calls  them, 
thru  which  he  makes  intelligible  the 
emotions  of  the  character  he  is  person- 
ating. "No  amount  of  sensibility  will 
avail  unless  it  can  express  itself  ade- 
quately by  these  symbols.  It  is  not 
enough  for  an  actor  to  feel:  he  must 
43 


ON  ACTING 

represent.  He  must  express  his  feelings 
in  symbols  universally  intelligible  and 
affecting." 

If  we  may  rely  on  the  testimony  of 
Lewes  himself,  actors  as  prominent  as 
Macready  and  Charles  Kean,  men  of 
intelligence  and  of  character  both  of 
them,  did  not  really  attain  to  the 
highest  altitudes  of  their  art,  because 
of  their  defective  control  of  these  sym- 
bols, the  result  of  purely  physical  dis- 
advantages. As  we  study  the  long 
annals  of  the  theater,  striving  to  ascer- 
tain what  player  most  certainly  com- 
bined in  himself  all  the  attributes  of  a 
truly  great  actor,  we  are  likely  to  be 
led  to  the  conclusion  that  no  one  has 
a  better  claim  to  the  supreme  chief- 
tainship of  the  histrionic  art  than  David 
Garrick,  equally  powerful  in  comedy 
and  in  tragedy,  and  as  warmly  wel- 
comed in  France  as  he  was  highly  es- 
teemed in  England: 
44 


ON  ACTING 

As  an  actor,  confest  without  rival  to  shine: 
As  a  wit,  if  not  first,  in  the  very  first  line. 

In  our  own  day  we  have  been  for- 
tunate in  the  privilege  of  studying  two 
of  the  masters  of  the  stage,  —  Jefferson 
and  Coquelin,  —  probably  as  accom- 
plisht  and  as  richly  endowed  as  any 
of  their  predecessors  in  the  theater, 
gifted  by  nature  and  trained  by  art. 
Having  something  within  them  to  ex- 
press, and  possessing  perfect  command 
of  the  symbols  of  expression,  they  had 
also,  each  of  them,  wide  cultivation, 
unusual  intelligence,  and  delightful  in- 
dividuality. 


45 


X 

DAVID  GARRICK  may  have  been 
the  greatest  actor  the  world  has 
ever  seen;  but  what  is  he  to-day  but 
a  faint  memory  —  a  name  in  the  bio- 
graphical dictionaries,  and  little  more? 
Joseph  Jefferson  was  the  most  delight- 
ful comedian  of  the  English-speaking 
stage  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury; but  his  fame  will  fade  like  Gar- 
rick's,  and  in  a  score  of  years  he  also 
will  be  but  a  name,  and  no  longer  an 
alert  personality  sharp  in  the  recollec- 
tion of  all  living  playgoers.  This  swift 
removal  to  the  limbo  of  the  vanisht  is 
the  fate  of  all  actors,  however  popular 
in  their  own  day,  and  however  indis- 
putable their  manifold  gifts. 

And  this  fate  the  actor  shares  with 
all  performers,  —  orators,  vocalists,  and 
46 


ON  ACTING 

instrumentalists.  It  is  a  fate  from 
which  the  practitioners  of  the  other 
arts  are  preserved  by  the  fact  that 
their  works  may  live  after  them, 
whereas  the  performers  can  leave  noth- 
ing behind  them  but  the  splendid 
recollection  that  may  linger  in  the 
memories  of  those  who  beheld  the  per- 
formance. Goldsmith  was  the  friend 
of  Garrick;  and  there  are  thousands 
today  who  have  enjoyed  the  quaint 
simplicity  of  the  *  Vicar  of  Wakefield,' 
and  to  whom  therefore  Goldsmith  is 
something  more  than  a  mere  name. 
Macready  was  the  friend  of  Bulwer- 
Lytton,  who  wrote  for  him  the  'Lady 
of  Lyons'  and  'Richelieu';  but  the 
actor  left  the  stage  more  than  half  a 
century  ago  and  has  been  forgotten  by 
the  play-goers,  who  long  continued  to 
attend  the  countless  performances  of 
the  two  plays  Macready  had  originally 
produced. 

47 


ON  ACTING 

The  actors  are  moved  often  to  repeat 
the  pathetic  query  of  Rip  when  he  re- 
turned from  his  sleep  of  twenty  years, 
"Are  we,  then,  so  soon  forgot?"  And 
Jefferson  himself  answered  the  ques- 
tion in  the  affirmative.  He  told  Mr. 
Francis  Wilson  that  Betterton  and  Gar- 
rick,  Kean  and  Mrs.  Siddons,  "mark 
milestones  in  the  dramatic  pathway, 
for  they  lived  at  a  time  when  liter- 
ary men  wrote  sympathetically  of  the 
stage,  and  so  their  memories  are  kept 
alive."  He  thought  that  Edwin  Booth 
might  be  more  than  a  tradition  solely 
because  he  had  founded  a  club --The 
Players  —  whereby  his  fame  would  be 
kept  green.  When  Mr.  Wilson  then 
askt  him  about  himself,  the  shrewd 
comedian  explained  that  his  own 
*  Autobiography'  might  serve  to  res- 
cue him  from  total  oblivion.  And 
he  summed  up  the  case  and  dismist  it 

finally  with   the   assertion    that  "the 
48 


ON  ACTING 

painter,  the  sculptor,  the  author,  all 
live  in  their  works  after  death,  —  but 
there  is  nothing  so  useless  as  a  dead 
actor!  Acting  is  a  tradition.  Actors 
must  have  their  reward  now,  in  the  ap- 
plause of  the  public,  —  or  never.  If 
their  names  live,  it  must  be  because  of 
some  extraneous  circumstance/' 

Other  distinguisht  actors  have 
phrased  the  same  thought  even  more 
forcibly.  Delaunay,  for  a  third  of  a 
century  the  ideal  young  lover  in  all 
the  masterpieces  of  dramatic  litera- 
ture performed  at  the  Theatre  Fran- 
cais,  used  to  liken  the  actor  to  the 
painter  in  Hoffmann's  weird  tale,  who 
sat  before  a  blank  canvas  with  an 
empty  brush  and  yet  gave  all  the 
touches  needed  for  a  true  picture. 
And  Lawrence  Barrett  was  fond  of 
repeating  an  anecdote  of  Michelangelo. 
To  please  some  exacting  patron  or  to 
gratify  a  whim  of  his  own,  the  great 
49 


ON  ACTING 

artist,  so  it  is  said,  once  carved  a 
statue  of  snow.  This  may  have  been 
the  final  expression  of  his  plastic  ge- 
nius; but  it  endured  only  until  the  sun 
shone  again.  Then  it  melted  swiftly 
into  a  shapeless  lump,  and  soon  it  was 
gone  forever,  leaving  no  record  of  its 
powerful  beauty.  "And  this  is  what 
the  actor  does  every  night,"  so  Bar- 
rett was  wont  to  comment;  "he  is 
forever  carving  a  statue  of  snow." 


XI 

OO  strong  is  the  instinctive  human 
^  desire  for  immortality,  so  abiding 
is  the  wish  of  man  to  transmit  to  those 
who  may  come  after  some  testimony 
of  himself,  that  these  regretful  utter- 
ances of  the  actors  are  very  natural, 
indeed.  But  is  their  case  really  as 
hard  as  they  think  it?  Has  the  actor 
no  compensation  for  the  transitoriness 
of  his  fame  ? 

And  when  we  seek  an  honest  answer 
to  these  questions,  we  can  find  one 
without  difficulty.  Indeed,  we  can 
find  two,  —  one  of  them  obvious 
enough,  and  the  other  perhaps  not  so 
evident,  but  not  less  suggestive. 

The  first  answer  is  contained  in  Jef- 
ferson's assertion  that  "actors  must 


ON  ACTING 

have  their  reward  now,  in  the  applause 
of  the  public,  —  or  never."  And  we 
all  know  that  actors  do  have  their  re- 
ward,—  an  ample  reward,  prest  down 
and  running  over.  Both  in  praise  and 
in  cash,  the  actor  is  better  paid  than 
any  other  artist.  In  proportion  to  his 
accomplishment,  he  is  greatly  overpaid, 
since  the  nightly  salary  of  a  prima 
donna  far  overtops  the  modest  fee  of 
the  composer  of  the  opera.  The  possi- 
ble earnings  of  celebrated  performers 
are  almost  fabulous,  now  that  they  can 
make  the  whole  world  tributary.  It 
may  be  that  the  pecuniary  gains  of  a 
very  popular  actor  are  not  actually 
greater  than  those  of  a  very  popular 
novelist  or  of  a  very  popular  portrait- 
painter.  But  where  there  are  today 
only  one  or  two  novelists  and  portrait- 
painters  who  have  attained  to  this 
summit  of  prosperity,  there  are  a  dozen 
or  a  score  of  actors  and  of  actresses 
52 


ON  ACTING 

who  are  reaping  the  richest  of  harvests. 
And  even  the  rank  and  file  of  the  his- 
trionic profession  are  better  paid  than 
are  the  average  practitioners  of  the 
other  arts. 

The  actor,  overpaid  in  actual  money 
so  far  as  his  real  ability  is  concerned, 
is  also  unduly  rewarded  with  adula- 
tion. In  the  general  ignorance  about 
the  art  of  acting,  he  is  often  rated  far 
more  highly  than  he  deserves.  He  is 
greeted  with  public  acclaim;  and  he 
can  rejoice  in  the  wide  reverberations 
of  a  notoriety  which  is  the  immediate 
equivalent  of  fame.  He  comes  almost 
in  personal  contact  with  his  admirers, 
and  they  are  loud  in  expressing  to  him 
the  pleasure  he  has  just  given  them. 
Far  more  directly  and  far  more  keenly 
than  any  poet  or  any  sculptor  can  the 
actor  breathe  up  the  incense  that  is 
offered  to  him.  And  if  he  happen  to 
be  a  Kemble,  he  may  have  the  good 
53 


ON  ACTING 

fortune  to  listen  while  a  Campbell  de- 
clares acting  to  be  the  supreme  art : 

For  ill  can  Poetry  express 

Full  many  a  tone  of  thought  sublime, 
And  painting,  mute  and  motionless, 

Steals  but  a  glance  of  Time. 
But  by  the  mighty  actor  brought, 

Illusion's  perfect  triumphs  come, — 
Verse  ceases  to  be  airy  thought, 

And  Sculpture  to  be  dumb. 

Even  if  the  actor  is  not  a  Kemble 
and  does  not  receive  the  homage  of  a 
Campbell,  even  if  he  is  but  one  of  the 
many  stars  that  twinkle  in  the  theat- 
rical firmament,  he  has  a  celebrity  de- 
nied to  other  artists.  He  may  expect 
to  be  recognized  as  he  passes  in  the 
street.  He  may  count  on  the  public 
familiarity  with  his  name,  such  as  no 
other  artist  could  hope  for.  Few  of 
those  who  throng  thru  the  portals  of  a 
noble  building  ever  give  a  thought  to 
the  architect  whose  work  it  is.  Few  of 
54 


ON  ACTING 

those  who  stand  in  admiration  before 
a  stately  statue  in  a  public  square  ever 
ask  the  name  of  the  sculptor  who 
wrought  it. 

Even  in  the  theater  itself  only  a  few 
of  those  who  sit  entranced  at  the  per- 
formance of  a  play  know  or  care  to 
know  its  authorship.  Bronson  How- 
ard was  once  askt  how  many  of  the 
audience  that  filled  the  theater  at  the 
hundredth  performance  of  one  of  his 
plays  would  be  aware  that  he  was 
the  author  of  the  piece  they  were 
enjoying;  and  he  answered  that  he 
doubted  if  one  in  ten  of  the  specta- 
tors happened  to  be  acquainted  with 
his  name.  But  at  least  nine  in  ten  of 
the  spectators  knew  the  names  of  the 
stars;  and  when  that  piece  chanced 
to  be  performed  later  by  one  of  the 
stock-companies,  it  was  advertised  as 
"Robson  and  Crane's  great  play,  the 
*  Henrietta/'  So  it  is  that  the  player 
55 


ON  ACTING 

is  ever  overshadowing  the  playwright, 
altho  the  actor  is  but  the  interpreter 
of  what  the  author  has  created.  It  is 
the  incalculable  advantage  of  the  actor 
that  "he  stands  in  the  suffused  light 
of  emotion  kindled  by  the  author,"  so 
Lewes  declared,  adding  that  the  per- 
former delivering  "the  great  thoughts 
of  an  impassioned  mind,  is  rewarded 
as  the  bearer  of  glad  tidings  is  re- 
warded, tho  he  may  have  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  facts  which  he  nar- 


rates." 


XII 

A  CERTAIN  rough-and-ready  jus- 
•*  *•  tice  there  is  in  most  of  the  affairs 
of  this  life;  and  by  this  those  who  have 
their  brief  hour  upon  the  stage  may 
profit,  like  the  rest  of  us.  The  obvious 
compensation  for  the  swift  forgetting 
that  may  follow  the  most  renowned 
actor's  withdrawal  from  active  service 
in  the  theater,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  while  he  was  prominent  before 
the  footlights  he  was  probably  more  or 
less  overpaid  either  in  approbation  or 
in  money,  and  possibly  in  both.  But 
there  is  another  compensation  less  ob- 
vious, and  indeed  wholly  overlookt 
by  those  who  have  discust  the  subject. 
Even  Lewes  failed  to  state  it,  altho 
he  seems  to  have  been  almost  in  sight 
of  it. 

57 


ON  ACTING 

"It  is  thought  a  hardship  that  great 
actors  in  quitting  the  stage  can  leave 
no  monument  more  solid  than  a  name," 
so  Lewes  wrote  commenting  on  the  re- 
tirement of  Macready.  "The  painter 
leaves  behind  him  pictures  to  attest 
his  power;  the  author  leaves  behind 
him  books;  the  actor  leaves  only  a 
tradition.  The  curtain  falls  —  the  art- 
ist is  annihilated.  Succeeding  genera- 
tions may  be  told  of  his  genius;  none 
can  test  it."  But  Lewes  did  not  see 
the  significance  of  these  final  words: 
"none  can  test  it."  They  suggest  that 
in  one  respect,  at  least,  the  actor  may 
be  more  fortunate  than  any  other 
artist.  His  fame  in  the  future  de- 
pends absolutely  on  the  reputation 
which  he  achieved  while  he  was  alive 
and  active  in  his  profession.  From 
that  pedestal  he  can  never  be  deposed. 
On  that  height  he  is  secure,  whatever 
the  changes  of  critical  theory  and  what- 
58 


ON  ACTING 

ever  the  vagaries  of  public  opinion. 
For  him  the  judgment  of  his  contem- 
poraries is  final;  and  posterity  has  no 
court  of  appeal.  The  election  on  the 
face  of  the  returns  must  stand;  and 
it  can  never  be  voided  later,  since  the 
ballots  have  been  destroyed. 

This  is  a  security  of  tenure  possest 
by  no  painter  and  by  no  poet,  whose 
works  survive  to  be  valued  anew  by 
the  changing  standards  of  successive 
generations.  Painters  exalted  in  one 
century  as  indisputable  masters  have 
been  cast  down  in  another  century  and 
denounced  as  mere  pretenders.  Pope 
was  acclaimed  in  his  own  day  as  the 
greatest  of  English  poets,  only  to  be 
disdained  in  a  few  score  years  as  an 
adroit  versifier,  a  mere  wit,  not  fairly 
to  be  termed  a  poet  at  all.  From  these 
vicissitudes  of  criticism  the  actor  is 
preserved;  his  fame  cannot  be  im- 
peacht.  No  critic  can  move  for  a  re- 
59 


ON  ACTING 

trial  of  Garrick;  the  witnesses  are  all 
dead;  the  case  is  closed;  the  decision 
stands  forever.  "Succeeding  genera- 
tions may  be  told  of  his  genius;  none 
can  test  it;"  —  and  because  none  can 
test  it,  succeeding  generations  must 
accept  what  they  have  been  told. 
Garrick  painted  his  picture  with  an 
empty  brush,  it  is  true,  and  he  had  to 
carve  his  statue  in  the  snow;  and 
therefore  neither  the  picture  nor  the 
statue  can  ever  be  seen  again  by  un- 
friendly eyes.  The  skill  of  the  artist 
cannot  be  proved;  we  have  to  take  it 
on  trust  and  to  hold  it  as  a  matter  of 
faith. 

Beyond  all  question,  it  may  be  a  sig- 
nal advantage  to  the  actor  that  he  can 
leave  behind  him  nothing  whereby  his 
contemporary  fame  may  be  contested 
by  those  who  come  after  him.  How 
great  an  advantage  it  may  be,  we  may 

gage  by  considering  the  sadly  shrunken 
60 


ON  ACTING 

reputations  today  of  certain  speakers 
accepted  in  their  own  time  as  orators 
of  compelling  force.  In  the  eighteenth 
century,  Whitefield  was  a  widely  popu- 
lar preacher,  credited  with  genuine  elo- 
quence by  all  who  heard  him.  One 
discourse  of  his  was  so  moving  that  it 
coaxed  the  copper  and  the  silver  and 
the  gold  out  of  the  pockets  of  the 
calm  and  unemotional  Franklin.  If  we 
had  only  the  testimony  of  those  who 
heard  him  gladly,  we  could  hardly  fail 
to  regard  Whitefield  as  one  of  the  real- 
ly great  orators  of  the  world.  Unfor- 
tunately for  the  fame  of  the  fervid 
preacher,  some  of  his  sermons  survive 
to  bear  witness  against  him.  White- 
field's  burning  words,  powerfully  ef- 
fective as  they  were  when  sustained 
by  his  artful  delivery,  are  cold  enough 
now  that  we  have  them  on  the  printed 
page. 

What  happened  to  Whitefield  in  the 
61 


ON  ACTING 

eighteenth  century  is  not  unlike  what 
happened  to  Gladstone  in  the  nine- 
teenth. There  would  be  little  possi- 
bility of  denying  to  the  great  party- 
leader  a  foremost  place  among  the 
world's  mightiest  orators,  if  we  had 
only  the  record  of  the  overwhelming 
effect  produced  upon  those  whom  he 
addressed,  whether  he  was  carrying 
the  fiery  cross  thru  Midlothian  or  hold- 
ing the  house  entranced  hour  after 
hour  by  a  speech  on  the  budget.  Not 
Webster,  not  Cicero,  not  Demosthenes 
was  more  powerful  in  producing  re- 
sults. But  we  are  not  compelled  to 
rely  solely  on  the  recollections  of  those 
who  sat  silent  under  the  spell  of  his 
commanding  personality.  When  we 
seek  to  test  Gladstone's  title  to  be  held 
a  great  orator,  we  can  call  other  wit- 
nesses, —  these  very  speeches  them- 
selves, revised  by  the  speaker  himself; 

and  they  bear  testimony  against  him, 
62 


ON  ACTING 

just  as  Whitefield's  sermons  bear  tes- 
timony against  Whitefield. 

The  reputation  of  Gladstone  and  of 
Whitefield  as  orators  would  be  higher 
than  it  is,  if  they  were  judged  only  by 
the  memories  of  those  who  heard  them, 
or  by  the  record  made  by  those  who 
were  still  under  the  spell  of  their  in- 
fluence. Herein  the  actors  are  luckier 
than  the  orators,  since  it  is  by  the  en- 
thusiastic record  alone  that  they  can 
be  judged.  There  can  be  no  other 
proof  of  their  great  gifts;  and  "none 


can  test  it.' 


XIII 

FT  is  true  that  now  and  again  a  skep- 
•*•  tic  stands  up  to  suggest  a  doubt 
whether  the  renowned  actors  of  the 
past  really  deserved  their  reputations. 
He  wonders  how  they  would  be  re- 
ceived today,  and  whether  we  should 
esteem  Burbage  and  Betterton  and  Ed- 
mund Kean  as  highly  as  they  were 
once  esteemed,  each  in  his  own  day. 
He  even  ventures  to  opine  that  if  these 
great  actors  could  appear  on  our  stage 
today,  we  should  find  them  old- 
fashioned,  of  course,  and  probably  also 
stilted  and  stagy.  And  altho  this  sug- 
gestion is  disconcerting,  it  contains  a 
certain  measure  of  truth.  The  acting 
of  the  past  was  not  exactly  like  the 
acting  of  the  present,  because  the  cir- 
64 


ON  ACTING 

cumstances  of  performance  have  been 
continually  changing,  even  if  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  art  abide  unaltered. 

The  actor  must  ever  adjust  himself 
to  the  theater  in  which  he  is  perform- 
ing. His  methods  must  be  modified 
in  accordance  with  the  condition  of 
the  stage  at  the  time.  Burbage  played 
his  parts  on  a  bare  platform  thrust  out 
into  the  unroofed  yard;  and  Edmund 
Kean  won  his  triumphs  in  a  huge 
theater  with  the  oil-footlights  curving 
out  far  beyond  the  curtain.  Burbage 
and  Kean  had  to  accept  these  con- 
ditions and  to  adjust  their  technic 
accordingly.  If  they  were  to  appear 
today  in  the  modern  playhouse  with 
its  picture-frame  stage,  and  if  they 
were  to  act  as  they  were  wont  to  act 
in  the  wholly  different  playhouse  of 
the  platform-stage  type,  no  doubt  they 
would  disappoint  us,  and  we  might 
very  well  fail  to  perceive  their  real 
65 


ON  ACTING 

merits.  But  this  is  not  the  fair  way 
to  put  it.  If  Garrick  were  to  be  born 
again,  and  to  grow  up  amid  our  con- 
ditions, he  would  accept  these  and  find 
his  profit  in  them.  His  histrionic  ge- 
nius would  expand  as  freely  now  as  it 
did  then;  and  he  would  be  as  respon- 
sive to  the  pressure  of  public  expecta- 
tion in  the  twentieth  century  as  he 
was  in  the  eighteenth. 


66 


XIV 

F  INHERE  are  certain  parrot-cries 
•*•  that  are  forever  echoing  down  the 
corridor  of  Time.  Every  young  gener- 
ation hears  them,  and  is  forced  to  won- 
der how  much  truth  they  may  contain. 
Perhaps  the  most  insistent  of  these  im- 
mortal complaints  is  that  which  keeps 
on  declaring  the  decline  of  the  drama. 
That  the  theater  is  going  to  the  dogs, 
-  this  is  what  we  may  hear  on  every 
hand.  But  a  little  knowledge  of  the 
last  century  is  reassuring,  since  we 
learn  then  that  our  fathers  and  our 
grandfathers,  and  the  grandfathers  of 
our  grandfathers,  were  all  of  them  told 
that  the  stage  had  fallen  on  evil  days 
and  that  its  future  would  certainly  be 
inferior  to  its  past.  Sometimes  it  is 
67 


ON  ACTING 

the  organization  of  the  theater  which 
is  said  to  be  at  fault;  sometimes  it  is 
dearth  of  good  actors;  and  sometimes 
it  is  the  scarcity  of  good  plays  and  the 
steady  deterioration  of  the  art  of  the 
dramatist. 

When  Colley  Gibber  asked  Congreve 
why  he  did  not  write  another  comedy, 
the  old  wit  retorted  promptly,  "But 
where  are  your  actors?"  And  Colley 
Cibber  was  one  of  a  group  of  actors 
and  actresses  as  brilliant  and  as  accom- 
plisht  as  ever  graced  the  stage  in  Great 
Britain.  Sir  Philip  Sidney  almost  wept 
over  the  pitiful  condition  of  the  English 
drama,  just  before  Shakspere  came 
forward  with  his  swift  succession  of 
masterpieces.  If  we  go  back  many 
centuries  to  Greece,  we  find  Aristo- 
phanes lamenting  the  decay  of  dramatic 
literature  as  evidenced  in  the  plays 
of  Euripides.  And  when  Thespis  first 

started  out  with  his  cart,  —  the  ear- 

68 


ON  ACTING 

liest  recorded  attempt  of  any  star- 
actor  to  go  on  the  road  with  his  own 
company,  —  we  may  be  certain  that 
there  were  not  lacking  veteran  play- 
goers who  promptly  foresaw  the  speedy^ 
decline  of  the  drama. 

Just  now,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
twentieth  century,  when  our  theaters 
are  more  beautiful  and  more  artisti- 
cally adorned  than  ever  before,  and 
when  scenery  and  costumes  and  all 
needful  accessories  are  more  carefully 
considered,  attention  is  loudly  called 
to  the  feebleness  of  the  average  play 
and  to  the  inefficiency  of  the  average 
actor.  And  yet  a  moment's  reflection 
ought  to  make  it  plain  that  there  never 
has  been  any  period  when  the  average 
play  and  the  average  actor  deserved 
unfailing  praise.  Even  in  the  greatest 
epochs  of  the  drama  the  average  play 
was  none  too  good.  We  are  all  fa- 
miliar with  the  comedies  of  Sheridan 
69 


ON  ACTING 

and  Goldsmith;  but  we  do  not  recall 
the  forgotten  efforts  of  Cumberland  and 
Kelly,  who  shared  the  stage  with  them. 
We  point  with  pride  to  Shakspere;  but 
we  do  not  pine  for  a  revival  of  the 
pieces  of  Dekker  and  Heywood.  We 
know  that  Corneille  and  Moliere  and 
Racine  were  the  masters  of  the  French 
theater  under  Louis  XIV;  but  most 
of  us  are  absolutely  ignorant  even  of 
the  faded  names  of  their  contemporary 
rivals. 

Obviously  it  is  unfair  to  crush  the 
average  playmaker  of  today  by  a  com- 
parison with  the  greatest  dramatists 
of  other  days.  And  every  one  who 
has  studied  the  recent  history  of  the 
theater  will  admit,  if  he  is  both  com- 
petent and  candid,  that  the  outlook 
for  the  future  is  far  more  hopeful  than 
it  was  forty  or  fifty  years  ago.  The 
technic  of  the  dramaturgic  art  is  far 

better  understood  now  than  it  was  a 
70 


ON  ACTING 

little  while  ago;  and  in  every  modern 
language  there  are  men  of  ability  who 
have  mastered  this  technic  and  who 
are  striving  to  set  on  the  stage  the 
themes,  the  manners,  and  the  char- 
acters of  this  new  century.  Ibsen  and 
Bjornson  are  dead;  but  Hervieu  and 
Brieux,  Rostand  and  Lavedan,  are 
writing  in  France,  as  Sudermann  and 
Hauptmann  are  in  Germany  and 
d'Annunzio  in  Italy.  In  England  there 
are  Sir  James  Barrie  and  Mr.  Shaw, 
Mr.  Jones  and  Sir  Arthur  Pinero;  and 
here  in  America  there  are  half-a-dozen 
men,  still  young  most  of  them,  and  still 
learning  how  to  see  the  life  about  them 
and  how  to  reproduce  it  on  the  stage, 
who  are  earnestly  seeking  as  best  they 
can  to  hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature. 

If  the  theaters  are  beyond  all  dis- 
pute better  than  they  were  a  few  years 
ago,  and  if  the  dramatic  literature  of 
the  present  bids  fair  to  be  more  sat- 


ON  ACTING 

isfactory  in  the  future,  the  sole  re- 
maining point  of  attack  is  the  acting. 
What  is  the  profit  in  a  rebirth  of  dra- 
matic literature  if  there  are  no  per- 
formers to  embody  it?  Where  are 
your  actors?  Where  are  the  Booths, 
the  Kembles,  the  Garricks  of  our  time? 
Where  is  even  that  much  vaunted  old- 
fashioned  stock-company,  capable  of 
presenting  the  old  comedies  because 
every  member  was  a  trained  artist? 
With  our  syndicates  and  our  star- 
system,  and  our  long  runs,  the  art  of 
acting  is  doomed  without  hope  of  re- 
covery. Who  shall  be  bold  enough  to 
controvert  prophecies  of  evil? 

It  calls  for  little  hardihood  to  deny 
this  and  for  little  knowledge  of  the 
theater  to  disprove  it.  The  Booths 
and  the  Kembles  and  the  Garricks  did 
not  all  live  at  once;  and  it  is  absurd 
to  suppose  that  we  can  match  all  the 

mighty  actors  of  the  past  in  a  single 
72 


ON  ACTING 

quarter  of  a  century.  We  may  even 
admit  that  the  English-speaking  stage 
happens  for  the  moment  to  be  without 
any  histrionic  artists  of  the  acknowl- 
edged eminence  of  Irving  and  Jefferson 
and  Booth.  But  to  say  this  is  not  to 
admit  that  we  are  poverty-stricken, 
and  that  our  theater  is  devoid  of  many 
players  of  admirable  accomplishment 
both  in  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States.  We  all  know  better.  We  can 
easily  call  the  roll  of  a  dozen  or  a  score 
of  actors  who  are  artists,  gifted  by 
nature  and  cultivated  by  long  exer- 
cise of  their  powers,  possessing  each 
of  them  an  individuality  of  his  own. 
Indeed,  the  list  of  these  performers  of 
high  merit  is  so  long  that  it  would  be 
invidious  to  attempt  to  set  it  down 
here.  We  can  each  of  us  make  it  up 
to  suit  our  own  likings. 


73 


XV 

AND  yet  in  fairness  the  admission 
4  *•  must  be  made,  not  only  that  our 
stage  just  now  happens  to  lack  any 
performers  of  the  acknowledged  preem- 
inence of  Booth  and  Irving  and  Jeffer- 
son, but  also  that  there  is  a  fair  foun- 
dation for  the  assertion  that  we  do  not 
now  see  the  old  comedies  as  well  acted 
as  they  were  a  few  years  ago  at  Daly's, 
a  little  earlier  at  Wallack's,  and  still 
further  back  at  the  Haymarket  in 
London.  This  admission  can  be  made 
frankly  and  without  also  admitting 
that  it  implies  any  necessary  degen- 
eracy of  the  art  of  acting.  The  so- 
called  "old  comedies"  —  the  'School 
for  Scandal'  and  the  ' Rivals,'  'She 
Stoops  to  Conquer'  and  'London  As- 
74 


ON  ACTING 

surance'  and  'Money*  —  were  written 
for  a  theater  in  which  the  conditions 
were  very  different  from  those  which 
obtain  in  the  playhouses  of  this  twen- 
tieth century,  and  they  called  for  act- 
ing different  in  kind  from  the  acting 
appropriate  on  our  modern  stage. 

Sheridan  and  Goldsmith  and  Bouci- 
cault  wrote  for  a  theater  which  was  so 
insufficiently  lighted,  either  with  oil  or 
gas,  that  the  stage  had  to  curve  far 
out  into  the  auditorium,  to  form  what 
was  known  as  the  "apron";  and  on 
this  apron,  in  the  full  glare  of  the  foot- 
lights, the  actor  came  forward,  far  in 
front  of  the  proscenium-arch  in  which 
the  curtain  rose  and  fell.  In  our  mod- 
ern playhouses,  every  part  of  the  stage 
is  adequately  illuminated  by  the  elec- 
tric light,  and  the  apron  has  disap- 
peared, so  that  the  actor  now  does  his 
work  behind  the  proscenium-arch  and 
remote  from  the  audience.  Half  a 
75 


ON  ACTING 

century  ago  the  actor  was  really  per- 
forming on  a  platform  thrust  out  into 
the  audience,  whereas  today  he  is  re- 
moved behind  a  picture-frame.  The 
so-called  "old  comedies"  were  written 
for  the  platform-stage,  and  they  had 
the  oratorical  manner  proper  enough 
on  a  platform.  Our  modern  plays  are 
written  for  the  picture-frame  stage, 
and  their  dialog  is  far  less  rhetorical, 
far  simpler,  far  more  "natural"  than 
was  appropriate  to  the  theater  of  the 
last  generation. 

It  is  no  wonder,  therefore,  that  the 
actors  of  our  time,  accustomed  to  these 
more  natural  modern  pieces,  have  not 
preserved  the  artificial  tradition  es- 
tablisht  long  ago  for  the  proper  per- 
formance of  plays  written  to  suit  the 
very  different  conditions  of  an  earlier 
theater  that  has  now  ceased  to  be. 
The  best  acting  today  is  adjusted  to 

the  stage  of  today;  and  the  best  act- 
76 


ON  ACTING 

ors  are  striving  for  veracity  of  char- 
acter-delineation of  a  kind  almost  im- 
possible on  the  stage  of  yesterday. 
Their  methods  are  necessarily  different 
from  the  methods  of  their  predeces- 
sors in  the  playhouses  of  half  a  century 
ago;  but  even  if  different,  these  meth- 
ods are  not  necessarily  artistically  in- 
ferior. Ristori,  for  example,  was  reck- 
oned a  fine  actress  in  her  time,  yet  she 
would  seem  strangely  old-fashioned, 
and  perhaps  even  stagy,  to  us  who 
are  familiar  with  the  simpler  and  pro- 
founder  art  of  Duse.  Ristori  was  a 
mistress  of  all  the  histrionic  devices 
which  belonged  to  the  platform-stage, 
whereas  Duse  has  adjusted  her  art  to 
the  later  conditions  of  the  picture- 
frame  theater. 

Probably  very  few  of  those  who  are 

studying  the  stage  have  yet  seized  the 

full  significance  of  this  change  in  the 

relation  of  the  actor  to  the  audience, 

77 


ON  ACTING 

—  this  withdrawal  of  the  performer 
from  the  platform  almost  surrounded 
by  the  spectators  behind  a  frame  which 
sets  him  apart  and  keeps  him  remote. 
This  modification  of  the  circumstances 
of  performance,  like  all  other  modifica- 
tions that  have  preceded  it  in  the  long 
eyolution  of  the  theater,  has  had  its 
effect  on  the  dramatist  as  well  as  on 
the  comedian.  Duse  is  not  more  dif- 
ferent from  Ristori  than  is  the  'Caval- 
leria  Rusticana,'  in  which  she  appears, 
different  in  its  method  from  the  '  Marie 
Antoinette/  in  which  the  earlier  Italian 
actress  was  so  successful  half  a  cen- 
tury ago.  Of  course,  this  change  in 
the  aims  of  the  playwrights  is  not  to 
be  ascribed  solely  to  the  modification 
of  theatrical  conditions,  for  it  is  coin- 
cident also  with  the  spread  of  realism. 
If  Ibsen  strove  to  present  human  na- 
ture as  he  saw  it,  with  the  utmost 
simplicity  and  directness,  and  if  he  es- 
78 


ON  ACTING 

chewed  rhetorical  amplifications  accept- 
able enough  to  our  grandfathers,  there 
is  a  double  explanation.  His  attitude 
is  partly  the  result  of  that  wide-spread 
movement  in  favor  of  a  bolder  ve- 
racity than  literature  had  aimed  at 
before  Balzac  set  the  example;  and  it 
is  also  partly  the  result  of  the  new  opr 
portunity  proffered  by  the  picture- 
frame  of  the  modern  theater,  which 
seems  to  demand  a  more  accurate  re- 
production of  the  characteristic  back- 
ground and  a  closer  relation  of  char- 
acter to  environment. 

There  is  no  need  of  insisting  that 
the  more  modern  methods  of  the  drama 
are  better  than  the  older.  Indeed,  the 
more  we  consider  the  conditions  of  the 
Greek  theater  and  of  the  Elizabethan 
theater,  the  more  clearly  can  we  per- 
ceive that  they  also  had  advantages 
of  their  own  not  to  be  found  in  the 
theater  of  our  time.  But  it  is  for  the 
79 


ON  ACTING 

theater  of  our  time  that  our  dramatists 
must  compose  their  plays;  and  it  is  in 
the  theater  of  our  time  that  our  actors 
must  act.  The  theater  of  the  Greeks 
cannot  be  resuscitated  today  any  more 
than  the  theater  of  the  Elizabethans. 
And  it  is  with  the  theater  of  today,  and 
not  with  the  theater  of  any  yesterday, 
that  both  playwright  and  performer 
have  to  deal.  Those  who  have  the 
pleasant  privilege  of  advancing  years, 
and  who  can  therefore  look  back  to 
earlier  conditions,  may  not  like  the 
conditions  that  obtain  now.  And  there 
is  no  cause  for  wonder  in  the  fact  that 
some  of  them  think  that  the  change  is 
for  the  worse. 


80 


XVI 

IT  will  surprize  no  one  to  learn  that 
Joseph  Jefferson  found  it  difficult 
to  reconcile  himself  to  the  newer  prac- 
tises. He  was  himself  an  actor  who 
sought  truth  as  he  saw  it;  but  he  did 
not  relish  the  larger  proportion  of 
actual  fact  that  he  found  presented  in 
certain  recent  plays.  I  can  recall  a 
conversation  with  him  during  Duse's 
first  visit  to  the  United  States,  not 
long  after  he  had  seen  her  performance 
in  'Cavalleria  Rusticana.'  "It's  too 
realistic,"  he  said  to  me;  "altogether 
too  realistic.  Why,  I  could  count  all 
the  fleas  in  that  Italian  village!" 

And  here  is  the  difficulty  of  the  mod- 
ern school  of  actors.     They  are  seek- 
ing to  present  character  as  sincerely  as 
81 


ON  ACTING 

they  can;  they  have  relinquisht  many 
of  the  effects  which  actors  of  an  earlier 
generation  delighted  in;  and  as  a  re- 
sult they  may  sometimes  seem  tame 
and  pale  to  those  who  are  looking  for 
the  kind  of  acting  which  was  appro- 
priate enough  in  plays  of  a  more  florid 
type.  It  is  this  which  underlies  the 
accusation  brought  against  one  very 
modern  actress,  —  that  "she  overacts 
her  underacting.'*  It  is  this  which 
underlay  the  complaint  of  the  old 
actor  in  Sir  Arthur  Pinero's  delightful 
'Trelawney  of  the  Wells,5  —  that  the 
part  given  to  him  in  the  new  play 
had  n't  a  single  speech  in  it,  —  not 
what  you  could  call  a  speech,  —  not 
a  speech  that  you  could  "sink  your 
teeth  inj'! 

We  need  not  be  astonisht  that  act- 
ors who  overact  their  underacting 
should  seem  out  of  place  and  ill  at  ease 

in  the  older  plays  which  abound  in 
82 


ON  ACTING 

speeches  that  you  can  sink  your  teeth 
in.  This  is  the  chief  reason  why  many 
recent  revivals  of  old  plays  have  seemed 
to  us  unsatisfactory.  The  actor  was 
called  upon  to  attempt  something  for 
which  he  had  no  training.  He  tried 
to  apply  modern  methods  to  pieces 
which  demanded  insistently  the  fash- 
ions of  an  earlier  time,  and  which  lost 
much  of  their  effect  when  they  were 
not  played  in  the  key  in  which  they 
were  composed  originally.  To  trans- 
pose them  was  to  rob  them  of  their 
special  quality.  And  no  better  illus- 
tration of  this  could  be  found  than  the 
comparison  of  *  Fedora*  as  performed 
by  Sarah-Bernhardt  and  by  Duse. 
The  French  actress  belongs  to  the 
older  school;  and  she  is  mistress  of 
all  the  tricks  of  the  trade  as  they 
were  practised  forty  and  fifty  years 
ago.  'Fedora'  is  a  show-piece,  written 
around  the  actress;  it  is  a  play  full  of 
83 


ON  ACTING 

sound  and  fury,  signifying  nothing. 
Her  performance  of  the  part  is  incom- 
parably brilliant,  a  masterpiece  of 
bravura.  The  Italian  actress,  on  the 
other  hand,  tried  to  make  the  char- 
acter real  and  poignant;  and  this  was 
patently  impossible.  The  more  vera- 
cious Duse  was,  the  more  she  exposed 
the  unveracity  of  Sardou.  But  a  com- 
parison of  Duse  and  of  Sarah-Bernhardt 
in  a  more  modern  play  —  in  Suder- 
mann's  'Heimat/  for  example,  which 
we  know  as  'Magda'  —  was  altogether 
to  the  advantage  of  the  younger  per- 
former. 


XVII 

are  gains  for  all  our 
losses,"  as  the  poet  says,  —  even 
if  there  are  also  losses  for  all  our  gains. 
We  lost  something,  no  doubt,  when  the 
old  stock-companies  past  out  of  exist- 
ence, —  such  stock-companies  as  the 
London  Haymarket,  or  Wallack's,  or 
Daly's.  These  companies  contained 
many  admirable  actors  who  were  ac- 
customed to  each  other,  and  who  un- 
derstood all  the  advantages  of  team- 
play.  But  it  was  always  a  matter  of 
chance  whether  they  could  be  fitted 
into  a  new  play.  The  first  perform- 
ance of  the  'Shaughraun'  at  Wallack's 
lingers  in  the  memory  of  all  who  had 
the  good  fortune  to  see  it  as  the  best 
possible  example  of  the  work  of  a  good 
85 


ON  ACTING 

stock-company.  There  was  Bouci- 
cault  himself,  in  the  center  of  the  stage 
all  the  time;  there  were  Henry  Mon- 
tague and  Ada  Dyas  as  the  pair  of 
lovers,  a  delight  to  recall;  there  was 
Harry  Beckett  as  the  cowardly  villain; 
and  there  was  John  Gilbert  as  the 
kindly  priest.  But  there  were  also 
two  important  characters  intrusted  to 
actors  entirely  unsuited  to  them,  — 
good  enough  performers  in  other  parts, 
but  hopelessly  miscast  in  this  play. 
They  were  square  pegs  in  round  holes; 
and  in  every  performance  of  the  good 
old  stock-companies  the  spectators 
were  likely  to  find  one  or  more  square 
pegs  in  round  holes,  simply  because 
the  manager  had  to  do  the  best  he 
could  with  the  performers  on  his  salary- 
list.  Nowadays  the  effort  is  made  to 
find  an  actor  exactly  suited  to  the 
part;  and  as  a  result  the  best  perform- 
ances of  today  have  a  harmony,  a 
86 


ON  ACTING 

finish,   very   rarely  seen   in  the   best 
performances  of  yesterday. 

It  is  to  be  said  also  that  the  actors 
of  the  old  stock-companies  played  each 
of  them  his  own  "line  of  business,"  as 
it  was  called;  and  he  was  very  likely 
to  play  all  his  parts  in  much  the  same 
way.  He  did  not  realize  that  all  act- 
ing ought  to  be  character-acting.  He 
was  tempted  to  do  his  work  in  rough- 
and-ready  fashion;  and  to  repeat  him- 
self in  every  play  in  which  he  was 
called  upon  to  appear.  Perhaps  Mr. 
George  Bernard  Shaw  is  a  little  over- 
emphatic  in  expressing  his  contempt 
for  the  laziness  and  the  incompetence 
only  too  often  seen  even  in  fairly  good 
companies  under  the  old  conditions. 
"Having  been  brought  up  on  the  old 
stock-company  actor/'  Mr.  Shaw  de- 
clares, "I  knew  that  he  was  the  least 
versatile  of  beings,  —  that  he  was 
nailed  helplessly  to  his  own  line  of 
87 


ON  ACTING 

heavy  or  light,  young  or  old,  and  played 
all  the  parts  that  fell  to  him  as  the 
representative  of  that  line  in  exactly 
the  same  way.  I  knew  that  his  power 
of  hastily  swallowing  the  words  of  a 
part  and  disgorging  them  at  short  no- 
tice, more  or  less  inaccurately  and 
quite  unimprovably  (three  months' 
rehearsal  would  have  left  him  more  at 
sea  than  three  hours'),  was  incompatible 
with  his  ever  knowing  his  part  in  any 
serious  sense  at  all." 

The  answer  to  those  who  assert, 
truthfully  enough,  that  the  older  plays 
are  not  now  acted  as  well  as  they  used 
to  be,  is  that  the  newer  plays  are  acted 
far  better  than  they  would  have  been 
in  the  days  of  the  old  stock-companies. 
Performances  like  those  of  'Secret  Ser- 
vice/ of  'Arizona/  of  'Shore  Acres/  of 
the  'Thunderbolt/  were  quite  impos- 
sible under  the  earlier  conditions.  To- 
day every  play  is  cast  to  players  spe- 
88 


ON  ACTING 

cially  engaged  because  they  are  believed 
to  be  physically  or  temperamentally 
fitted  for  the  performance  of  the  part 
intrusted  to  each  of  them.  No  doubt, 
there  are  failures  enough  today;  but 
they  are  far  fewer  in  our  best  theaters 
now  than  they  were  in  the  foremost 
playhouses  of  half  a  century  ago. 
And  I  for  one  do  not  believe  that  the 
actors  of  our  time  are  in  any  way  in- 
ferior to  the  actors  of  the  past,  even 
if  they  do  their  work  under  different 
conditions.  They  may  not  succeed 
always  when  they  attempt  the  plays  of 
an  earlier  day,  but  their  failure  is  not 
as  complete  as  the  failure  of  the  older 
actors  would  be  if  it  were  possible  to 
call  upon  them  to  appear  in  our  modern 
realistic  drama,  where  every  part  is 
more  or  less  of  a  character-part,  and 
where  the  actor,  standing  on  a  fully 
lighted  stage,  is  expected  to  get  his 
effect  sometimes  by  his  speech,  but 
89 


ON  ACTING 

also  often  merely  by  a  gesture  or  only 
by  a  look.  Our  actors  are  now  less 
rhetorical  and  more  pictorial,  —  as  they 
must  be  on  the  picture-frame  stage  of 
our  modern  theater. 


90 


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